Interest in automatic meter reading has existed for over twenty-five years. Reasons for automatic meter reading, such as lower cost, lost time by a meter reader due to injuries from dog bites, inaccessibility to meters, irate customers, undesirable neighborhoods, the ability to control theft and destruction are all valid reasons for automatic meter reading. The industry, however, has not been able to provide any system that could compete in cost to the existing electromechanical meter. Thus, automatic meters were only considered for hard-to-read situations. Most systems require additional infrastructures which increases the overall cost of the system, and is therefore not at all cost effective for a system-wide implementation.
Systems are presently on the market which retrofit the existing electromechanical meter with pulse generating devices such as contact dosures, reed switches or photo diodes which generate pulses for every revolution of a least significant digital wheel or revolution of a disk. Typically, this pulse data is stored and retrieved via a remote handheld radio transmitter, the customer's phone line, power line carrier generator or fiber optic photo coupler. This pulsed data is then downloaded to a computer and then uploaded to a central billing computer. In addition, these systems require the use of a meter interface unit (MIU) which is an external device to retrieve and store gas and water usage. The MIU is also used to house the mode of communication. The MIU fails to offer any visual display to the consumer.
These systems are relatively accurate for their method by which data is collected, stored and downloaded to a utilities computer for billing purposes. However, there are several downsides to this technology. For example, utilizing these pulse generating devices can lead to error introductions due to mechanical shock, electrostatic charge or the addition of external light sources in the case of photo diodes. This introduction of possible errors means the meter must be read more often to ensure that no error introduction has occurred, thereby defeating the purpose of automatic reading.
Hence, both the utility company and the consumer would benefit from a more accurate and efficient meter that would allow for multi-utility data collection, calculation, storage, a display of consumption in units of real time and a communication medium which allows for data transmission to and from a central billing computer. A meter which provides, inter alia, the above attributes would represent a marked improvement over prior art utility meters. Furthermore, a direct meter replacement would solve the problems associated with retro-fitting existing meters.
The following prior art reflects the state of the art of which applicant is aware and is included herewith to discharge applicant's acknowledged duty to disclose relevant prior art. It is stipulated, however, that none of these references teach singly nor render obvious when considered in any conceivable combination the nexus of the instant invention as disclosed in greater detail hereinafter and as particularly claimed.
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